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When does one wake up? When the daily alarm goes off? When one finds oneself on autopilot while driving from Point A to Point B, and starting to drift over the lane bumps or the shoulder grooves? Or when one finds themselves on a hospital gurney in a heart facility after having stents placed in major coronary arteries?

On many occasions I have heard people say that they are in a ‘rut’ and that they can’t wait to break out it – and then I wonder why they think they have to continue deepening the rut until, sometime, magically, they can climb out of an ever deepening furrow? Ironically, I know the feeling.

I look back on my life as a series of chapters or periods, each lasting many years, that define (or should I say – that I’ve allowed to define) my path to success. Recently, though, over the last couple of years, I’ve started some pretty deep introspection into my life to evaluate what results I’ve garnered from these chapters or periods.

In some areas, I have accomplished a great deal of what I set out to do – (these are not in any particular order) I’ve raised five children, got educated, built several companies, sold one of them – enjoyed a decently financed life for a while. I’ve traveled in thirty countries, also worked in several of them; I’ve been a writer (written one screenplay, working on a couple novels), have been a free-lance photographer, a program director for a radio station, a playwright, an actor, a student, a singer, a poet, a project manager, a home builder, a creator and editor of a literary magazine, a chef, a presenter, a scout leader, a speaker, a weekend sailor, a consultant, a teacher, a mentor, a scuba diver, and, if you count my time on the autobahn in Germany, a ‘race car driver’, and, I’ve found that when I haven’t traveled in a while I get the ‘travel itch’ very badly.

The ‘net’ of the above – my conclusion so far from my examination of my life is that I’m a rut. Ok, now what?

The saying goes, “the time has come, the walrus said, to talk of many things – of shoes, and ships, and sealing wax – of cabbages and kings”. With that opening line I open my first blog.

What prompted me to start writing a blog (especially when there are millions who already do)? Simple. I, like all the others, have something which I think deserves to be said. The events of the last couple of days brings this need into sharp focus, for within the last 24 hours or so, the Thomas Edison of our age, Steven P Jobs, passed away. I find that I have struggled with this particular loss – not because I am one of his family, or a member of his circle of friends, or even a current or former employee of Apple – but because even though he did not know me, his passion was to make my life (and countless others like me) better and more rewarding.

His imagination, genius, passion, and leadership will be sorely missed – but at least I was fortunate to live in his era…